The Restoration of Israel

The first three verses of Jeremiah 31 speak to us of the restoration of Israel! But first we are confronted with a question. Why did Israel need restoration, and from what did they have to be restored? This is an important question. If there had not been a fall into sin, restoration would not be necessary. The Lord had been very patient and had shown much concern for the children of Israel. He had chastised them, but had also blessed them.

Verse 1 speaks of a blessed promise. The Lord said, “At the same time will I be the God of all the families of Israel, and they shall be My people.” Restoration was necessary because they had departed further and further from their covenant God. In Adam, our covenant head, we have all left God, have said farewell to Him, never to return in and of ourselves. There would be salvation for no one if the Lord Himself had not given the promise of salvation already in the garden, “And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed, it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heal” (Gen. 3:15).

There we have the promise of the coming of the blessed Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ, who would come in the fullness of time. Only in Him could Israel be restored into the blessed favor and fellowship of God.

But now we read, “I will be the God of all the families of Israel.” Does that mean that all the families of Israel would be saved? No, for we read in Rom. 9:6b, “For they are not all Israel, which are of Israel,” and in Rom. 9:8, “They which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God: but the children of the promise are counted for the seed.” This is the sovereignty of God—to choose in the stillness of eternity a remnant according to the election of grace (Rom. 11:5). The Lord will save those whom He has loved from all eternity out of all the kindreds of the earth. They shall come from all nations. “And they shall be My people.”

There is no apostasy of saints from grace. These people shall be quickened unto a new life. They are powerfully wrought upon by the quickening Spirit of God. Their eyes are opened for their lost and condemnable state before God. They become lost and guilty before God.

Verse 2 says, “The people that were left of the sword found grace in the wilderness.” Yes, it was in the wilderness of this world. This world becomes a wilderness to the people of God, for this is not their home. We have here no continuing city, but we seek one to come.

Only the people who were left of the sword found grace in the wilderness. It is a peculiar people. The worldling cannot understand them, and many times they are despised.

We read further in verse 2, “Even Israel, when I went to cause him to rest.” When do God’s people receive rest for their soul? When the Lord speaks to them by His Word and Spirit. The centurion said, “Lord, speak but one word, and Thy servant shall be healed.” We read in Malachi 4:2, “But unto you that fear My Name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in His wings.”

Now Jeremiah says in verse 3, “The Lord hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with loving-kindness have I drawn thee.” But do God’s people know this when they are first convicted of sin, righteousness and judgment? No, they learn it later on, in the further steps of grace. It says “therefore,” which implies from eternity. For His own Name’s sake He draws that people in the day of grace at His time out of the power of darkness to His marvelous light.

We read in Rom. 2:4b, “Not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance.” It is the goodness of God that breaks the hard heart. In such a way the Lord Himself makes room in the hearts of His people for that one and only way of deliverance which can be found in a crucified Redeemer, who has given Himself as the Mediator of the covenant, having suffered and died for all the sins of His people. Oh, how happy is such a soul when he may discover that there is a way to be saved outside of himself in Christ! That small flock consists of sheep who are righteous only in Christ their Redeemer, and have nothing in themselves. Yet they feel themselves responsible before a holy and a righteous God, who has power to cast into hell. Oh, what a great blessing it is for a child of God when he may be given to accept the punishment of his iniquities, saying, with Micah, “I shall bear the indignation of the Lord, for I have sinned against Him” (Micah 7:9a). When in such a frame, they may embrace the justice of God, and Christ reveals Himself as a sin-cleansing and pardoning Savior.

Then the Lord speaks, “And the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin” (1 John 1:7b). The burden of sin and guilt falls from their shoulders, for their sins are covered, (Ps. 32:1), and they can find them no more at that moment. Drawn “with lovingkindness,” a blessed peace enters into the soul which passes all understanding.

May God, by grace, make it ours.

…the Lord Himself makes room in the hearts of His people for that one and only way of deliverance which can be found in a crucified Redeemer…

Wm. Van Voorst serves as elder in the Netherlands Reformed Congregation of Sioux Center, Iowa.

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